VETERAN CAR GUIDE
drive temperamental, but with their modest weight, they were very fast. The passenger was seated at the front and the driver at the rear. Several hundred voiturettes were made, with a range of bodies. In 1903, a new factory produced four-wheeled cars with a conventional four-cylinder engine with chain drive.
Locomobile and Locomobile Steam Amzi Lorenzo Barber and John Brisbane Walker registered the Locomobile Company of America at Watertown, Massachusetts, USA, and the first Locomobiles were really Stanleys. Barber and Walker soon disagreed, and in 1900 Walker set up in Tarrytown, New York, to build Mobiles. Meanwhile, Barber consolidated Locomobile production in Bridgeport, Connecticut, making a lightweight steam Runabout. By 1902, these were made sturdier, but the company soon went over to petrol-driven cars.
Martini Martini was a pioneer Swiss automobile manufacturer, in operation from 1897 to 1934. In 1897, businessman Adolf von Martini built an experimental rear-engined car. He followed this with V4 cars of 10hp and 16hp in 1902. Since Swiss cantons were unusually hostile to cars, the company had to rely more than most on exports, and demand from abroad proved sufficient to justify building a factory in Saint-Blaise in 1904.
Maxim The London General Automobile Company Limited gave the name Maxim to a car designed by Hiram Stevens Maxim, who invented the Maxim gun. It had a twin-cylinder, 16hp, T-head Fafnir engine, three-speed gearbox and a double chain drive. Early cars had an armoured wood chassis and gilled-tube radiator, but later had steel frames and honeycomb radiators.
1904 Mercedes
Maxwell The Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Co. of Tarrytown, New York, USA commenced production in 1904, when 10 cars were built that year. The vehicle was a twoseater tourer with a wheelbase of 1.83m, equipped with a twin-cylinder horizontally opposed engine with mechanically operated inlet valves, thermosyphon cooling and two-speed planetary transmission.
Mercedes The Mercedes cars were born from a request from Wilhelm Jellinek to Daimler for a more powerful model with a lower centre of gravity, after a 24hp Daimler crashed in the 1900 La Turbie hill climb, killing the driver. The resultant design appeared in late 1900, and Jellinek called it after his daughter, Mercedes. The vehicle was equipped with a 35hp, 5913cc fourcylinder engine and had mechanically operated inlet valves as well as a gate-type gear change. It was markedly different from its predecessors, with a longer and lower frame although it did retain the earlier chain drive. It still required refinement, but during 1901 made its name in competitions. Between 1901 and 1903, models with increasingly larger engines appeared. The 40hp and 60hp cars set the standard that many other manufacturers followed.
Mercedes / Simplex The Mercedes Simplex was designed by Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart, Germany from 1902 until 1909. It featured powerful engines ranging from 40 to 60hp.
Minerva The Minerva was a prominent Belgian luxury automobile company that was established by a Dutchman, Sylvain de Jong, who originally set up a cycle manufacturing business in Antwerp in 1897. He built engines for several motorcycle manufacturers, including Humber, Royal Enfield and Triumph before embarking on motor car production. The company was restructured in 1903, following which the first important product was the Minervette that was introduced in 1904, with a 636cc engine mounted transversely at the front, a two-speed constant mesh gearbox and final drive by a single chain to the offside rear wheel. Later the focus switched to larger-engined cars, including a 3.6 litre four-cylinder model.
MMC Harry J. Lawson, entrepreneur and promoter of the first London to Brighton Run in 1896, created The Great Horseless Carriage Company Ltd in Coventry, in 1897. By 1898, this had become The Motor Manufacturing Company Ltd. This was based in part of The Motor Mills, which housed various manufacturers,
58 The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run